Live Review: Helloween, Lord, Darker Half

Sydneysiders Darker Half have been slogging it out for years now and have slowly built a reputation both here and abroad for their brand of melodic metal that is as much Maiden as it is Hammerfall. Attracting a respectable crowd at an early hour the quartet charged through a powerful set that even had heads banging at the back bar. Here's hoping this talented outfit break the Australian curse and find steady success.

Lord are a fiercesome live prospect but their set was too often marred by murky sound gremlins. They started off ok with a stirring rendition of Set In Stone but from where The Music was standing the group's material was marred by excessive feedback with Lord Tim's vocals buried in the mix. Still the crowd loved them and they were clearly a welloiled machine.

Helloween created power-metal (well the European strain anyway) but often don't get the credit they deserve due to a very uneven output over their career. The band in 2015 however is in the best shape it has been for years. While the obligatory hits such as Dr Stein, Future World and I Want Out were played with immaculate panache, it was the My God-Given Right material that really stood out. Heroes and the album's title track received the biggest cheers of the night and even when guitarist Sascha Gertner lost power for a couple of tracks it didn't dampen the mood, with the affable Germans entertaining the crowd with quips before service was resumed with a raucous rendition of Lost In America. Vocalist Andi Deris was on top form throughout (at times sounding eerily like Michael Kiske) while the rest of the band were an unstoppable juggernaut. Helloween could be coasting right now as scene veterans but their show seethed with energy and it's clear that this is an outfit determined not to rest on past triumphs.